


Corcaigh (Cork)

by butwordsarewind (sungabraverday)



Series: Cities Headcanons [10]
Category: Paris Burning (thecitysmith)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-02
Updated: 2013-08-02
Packaged: 2017-12-22 04:16:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/908812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sungabraverday/pseuds/butwordsarewind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cork, sorry, <i>Corcaigh</i>, is contrary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Corcaigh (Cork)

The first thing people will tell you is that Cork is a stubborn bastard. He will without fail correct them and remind them that his name is Corcaigh, thank you all the same. It’s not for love of the Irish language, but for love of nonconformity.

Corcaigh has never conformed. Back in the day, he was the English backing town, hating the countryside around him. Then when the English ruled the country, he was a rebel, Irish and proud. Irish and proud and willing to fight for it, each and every day. And fight he did, through a Civil War, when he was the last to concede and sign on to the treaty, as imperfect as it was. And he kept on fighting through the years that followed, and the Troubles, even when he was far from the places that were most disputed. 

And if Dublin drinks a lot, then by god the amount of liquor that runs through Corcaigh’s veins. It’s not even that the pain is overwhelming (it hasn’t been since the Famine and all the starving desperate souls flocking towards him and his ports to find a new and better life); it’s just that it’s easier. It’s easier to drink away the frustration that he has to do what Dublin asks and complain endlessly that he should be the Capital. It’s easier than feeling all the drugged out people wandering his streets without much hope of things getting better. It’s easier than knowing that there are some cities that can’t even understand him when he speaks English because his brogue is so thick. (His one consolation on that is that if you get Dublin drunk enough he slips into a northside accent and is even worse.) It’s easier than the economy promising him everything and then it all falling away in an instant, like fool’s gold. Alcohol is easier, and he exclusively drinks his own beers - Beamish and Murphy’s, thick stouts more reassuring than the lagers and ales they now put out.

He lies to himself, but the truth is Corcaigh loves not nonconformity but comparison. No, that’s not right, he loathes comparison, and he loves the feeling of hating it. He is proud. He is never people’s first choice, never the biggest or the happiest and never the centre, but he is certain that he is the best nevertheless. Who says that some measly humans some hundreds of years ago should dictate how much power a City holds now? Corcaigh wonders, and he can only conclude that they shouldn’t. The People’s Republic of Cork may never be a physical reality, but there are people who love him that way, and if he is a Capital in their hearts, then why should he stoop for less?


End file.
